A selection of weekly articles by top Bahamian commentators.

June 13, 2013

Lessons From the Flood

by Pat Rahming

Pat Rahming is one of the country’s leading architects and storytellers. This guest column developed from an online conversation immediately after the recent floods.

As a child, I played “under the floor”. It was a wonderful place, full of possibilities. My friends and I would find places to hide or to play house or school, or to hide our childhood treasures – marbles, baseballs, comic books – or to just pretend adventure. My uncle stored lumber there as well, waiting to be delivered to the jobsite. The world “under the floor” was different for everyone, but it was important to us all.

The first time I remember a flood in my part of Bain Town, I was not yet a teenager. The water in the street was above my knees, but I could sit, high and dry, on the top step leading up to my porch and watch things float by.

I listened as my grandmother held her three-way conversations, standing on our porch, with her friends across the street, also on their porches. Only one house in the neighbourhood was affected by the flood. It was a small house owned by a man who was leasing a spot in the yard next door to ours until he had paid for his own lot nearby, at which point he would move the house. Ignoring the warnings, he had placed on six blocks – much too low to the ground.

I don’t think my grandmother felt particularly lucky that there was no water in her house. That was why the house had been built on tall, cut stone blocks nearly 30 years earlier. Instead, she was annoyed that she could not get to work. You see, back then everyone knew a house should be built above the flood level. Everyone.

More than a half century later, no-one knows. Two weeks ago, following a once-in-a-decade deluge, hundreds, if not thousands of houses, built near the ground in low-lying areas, found themselves fighting water inside, sill-high. The common knowledge that during one of the two annual rainy seasons there would be flooding is no longer so common.

The question is left to developers seeking to deliver the least costly lots to their customers, to designers wishing to impress their clients with “style” and to builders offering a few dollars off for reducing the height of the foundation.

It is said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. I believe there is a need for us to change the way we approach the design of our built environment. This is not a question of looks, or of novelty. It is a question of approaching the environment with respect, rather than thinking that our wealth and sophistication makes us immune to the laws of nature.

Georgetown, Guyana is built well below sea level. First of all (and Queen’s Cove in Freeport might consider this) they protect the city with an enormous sea wall, important enough to the Guyanese to have become a landmark and a social gathering place. Still, because they understand that there will be times when the city will flood anyway, many of the houses are built with the living accommodations upstairs.

The ground level is used for storage and service areas. The result is a general two-storey look, which has become the character of the city.

It is their response to the conditions of their place.

Many years ago, I participated in a competition with two other Bahamian architects to design housing for the homeless in an area outside Manila, in the Philippines. The brief made it clear that none of the accommodations should be at ground level, since Manila floods during the monsoon season. All of the entries were buildings on stilts, with parking and storage at ground level. That was their way of responding to their conditions.

Igloos are a response to the need to maximise the interior volume of the housing of arctic dwellers; while minimising their exposure to the cold. And houses perched atop blocks of stone, with the floor well above the flood level, is the response of earlier Bahamians to the anticipation of heavy seasonal rains.

This basic response to the climate has characterised the development of architecture globally, and the Bahamas has not been an exception.

This approach became so common that even when there was no possibility of flooding, buildings still had their floors raised above the ground.

Many of the wealthiest homes in the city of Nassau – like Graycliff and Villa Doyle – are fine examples of this tradition. So it would not be unreasonable to expect designers to respect our climate, and the wisdom of the past, as we seek to rethink our building vocabulary.

Lesson One. We live in a particular place, with a particular climate that is different from other places. Here, there are rainy seasons at specific times every year, and every several years during those rainy seasons, there is flooding in low-lying areas. If we ignore this primary lesson, we will always suffer.

Lesson Two. The development of land is a sculptural affair. That is, it is necessary to plan the flow of ground water and to anticipate its ponding and removal. The cost of systems of removal – drainage – is as important as the cost of utilities. “Saving” on this important aspect of land development dooms consumers to higher future costs. Consumers who choose to purchase on the basis of first-cost only are often planning their own future financial pain.

Lesson Three. The design of a building cannot be independent of the characteristics of the site. Topography, orientation and location determine most of the eventual extent to which the house is enjoyed.

Flooding is predictable, and planning for it may not be fun, but it reduces the extent to which it hurts. Strategies to either get rid of ground water quickly or anticipation of standing water by raising the floor level are basic design decisions.

Who, then, is responsible for the damage caused by flooding? We all are. Those of us who have not passed on the wisdom of our grandfathers - who knew how to build so that while the storms would come, they would not destroy, are guilty of disrespecting tradition.

Those of us who create developments that ignore the need for proper drainage so that we might “help” those people who we say can’t afford an expensive lot, then cross our fingers that it will never rain again, are guilty of creating false expectations.

Those of us who bad-mouth the developer who tries to solve the problem, and whose lots are therefore more expensive, influence those who value our opinion to buy lots that are “affordable”, although they are subject to greater inconvenience and higher future costs.

The flood is not the problem. The flood is a fact of life, a circumstance. The problem is not having a way of dealing with the flood as an anticipated act of nature.

By comparison with other acts of nature, the floods we see are puny, but our response to them (pretending they are national disasters) is excessive. Once upon a time, we responded to the climate with respect, anticipating the relatively minor inconvenience, and building accordingly. Rich or poor, we built to be prepared for the hurricane, the rainstorm and the occasional flood. Perhaps it is time for us to return to the wisdom of our forefathers.

Comments

Everyone knew........everyone.
Development is an oxymoron, when we ignore what everyone should still know. Ground level houses are symptomatic of how we now think and the results - short term gain, and long term pain.
We have to think substance not style, and be prepared to sacrifice in the short term for long term benefit.